The Unhaunted House

Shown below is a floor plan of my home. Because the vampires will be roaming the neighborhood soon, I'll need to place a clove of garlic at certain interior corners of the house so that no matter where in the house a vampire tries to stand, the scent will scare him off. The scent is effective along any straight line path between a clove and a vampire, but not around corners of walls. (In other words, a vampire will smell a clove if and only if he can see it.) Garlic is expensive these days, so your job is to determine the fewest number of cloves needed to defend every point on the floor, and at which corners they should be placed.

I'll try 4 cloves at corners 4, 10, 17, & 26.

1, 14, 23, 31

As a real cheapskate I would go for three at 10, 23 and 26 which I think would potentially leave a vampire trapped at 4 and unable to do much harm: otherwise I would need at least four

I'm going to hire Lex to hang up four cloves at corners 4, 10, 23 and 26.

Shouldn't that be oldbroad with 4,10,17 and 26?

I just took the time to draw lines all over the graphic and I see no reason why 23 is the "right" answer when 17 does the same job. So oldbroad, would you please oversee Lex's work?

I'll be happy to be supervised - just like I am at home!

I had been holding a piece of paper up against my monitor using it as a ruler.

I agree that either 17 or 23 will work with 10 and 26.

I also agree that if the vampire enters at 4 he will be trapped, so that is Pandora's call.

! would probably encourage saving money and keeping a carefully trapped vampire - you never know when that might come in handy...

Yep! Could find some fun with it!